Tell those leeches that for their sakes hed better. I want to know what happened. I want to know what that thing was. I want to know why it wanted to kill him. Our Smoke has been up to something. It could get us destroyed.

They had discussed that again and again. There were implications in Smokes behavior which boded evil. Till they learned the truth, they suspected, a sword hung over their heads.

You havent said what you think.

I think everyone who sees you will think you look like a prince of the blood instead of a vegetable peddler someone threw ill-fitting clothing on and called a prince.

He chuckled. Youre right. In your sarcastic way. I never cared what I looked like. Wasnt anyone I wanted to impress. Time to go.

Suppose I go along, this once? A facetious suggestion, to see how he wriggled.

Why not? Get ready. It ought to be amusing, seeing her response.

And instructive? The Radishas estimate of her brother rose. He was not completely smitten. I wont be long.

She was not. It took her longer to pass instructions to Smokes attendants than to prepare to go out.

Chapter Fifty-Five

Chapter Fifty-Five

Croaker leaned on the lance supporting the Company standard, wearing his Shadar disguise. He was bored. He was not alert. He was depressed. He had begun to despair of escape. He was ready to say the hell with it and try walking first time a faint chance arose.

The Prahbrindrah Drah and Soulcatcher chattered and laughed beneath paper lanterns while garden staff came and went. They were oblivious to anything but one another. The surprise guest, the Radisha, was out in the cold, ignored.

Croaker had grumbled about spending so much time on the prince and not enough on preparing soldiers. Catcher had laughed, told him not to worry. She would be true to him forever. This was just politics.

He would not be able to resist her much longer. She had him on the run, desperate, on the brink of surrender. Once he did that she would have won everything.

Maybe he should. Maybe once she counted that final coup she would just go away, back north, where her prospects were so much finer. She talked about going north sometimes.

Being her companion was cruel. She had made of him something more than spoil. She talked about the Soulcatcher inside sometimes, when what she had chosen to be became too much to bear. In those moments, when she was human, he was most vulnerable. In those moments he wanted to comfort her. He was sure the moments were genuine, not tactical. Her approach to conquest was not subtle.